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Invest in Your Employees: 4 Key Reasons to Offer Continuing Education to Employees
By: Carlos Vetter
Although your inventory, real estate, and technological resources are vital to the success of your business, perhaps the most important assets you’ll invest in are your employees. Without a dedicated, hard-working, efficient group of employees, it’s tough to grow your business. Although many business leaders worry about the cost of offering continuing education programs as an employee benefit, they are a great way to reinvest in your company’s best asset.
Benefits to Offering Continuing Education
It Helps You Attract Top Employees
With the U.S. economy bouncing back and adding 169,000 jobs in August 2013, according to figures from Market Watch, potential employees can afford to be choosier in their job search process. Offering continuing education options, such as tuition reimbursement for completion of an MBA program, is a strong incentive for job applicants. These employee benefits draw applicants who are motivated to succeed, invested in their education, and hard-working. If your company struggles to find highly qualified applicants, adding a continuing education benefit may help in your next search.
Employees Become Experts in Their Niche
Investing in your employees’ educational development gives you a pool of experts upon whom you may draw. Perhaps you currently outsource your higher level IT decisions to consultants because you lack someone with the necessary expertise to develop your technology infrastructure. Rather than throwing money at outside consultants, offering incentives for an employee to complete an MBA program in Information and Technology Management is a smart investment, according to Alliant University. By financing employees’ advanced educations, you’ll build a team of experts with breadth and depth of experience.
It Improves Productivity and Efficiency
Offering continuing education to employees doesn’t mean that you need to reimburse dozens of people for their MBA degrees. For example, a short four-week course in project management could be an excellent value for an employee with a great work ethic but little management experience. According to Closing America’s Job Gap, continuing education improves employees’ work quality by decreasing waste, reducing errors, improving customer satisfaction and lowering the amount of health or safety incidents. Employees who complete continuing education opportunities stay at the forefront of the field, implementing the latest findings and best practices in your area.
It Increases Employees’ Loyalty to the Company
Offering continuing education improves morale, making your employees feel good about working for the company. According to HR World, 61 percent of employees who receive mentoring or advanced training opportunities report that they will stay with their company for at least five more years. If you experience frequent employee turnover, consider investing more heavily in your workers’ education. This opens advancement options and encourages workers to stay with your business.
Important Considerations When Offering Continuing Education
Before offering continuing education benefits, it’s important to clarify your goals. Tuition reimbursement and other education benefits are not a cure-all for companies plagued by poor employee retention or low morale. Make a list of the specific areas you would like to see improvement from your employees. Perhaps you’d like to boost productivity or expand your marketing campaigns. Look for continuing education opportunities — from a week-long conference to full-time MBA programs — that will help you achieve these specific business goals.
—–Carlos Vetter is a marketing agent from California who handles advertising for several Fortune 500 companies.
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